City targets southwest Houston for development

Hiram Clarke is not the only Houston community where overgrown vacant land wraps patched roads, crumbling curbs and boarded up strip malls.

Yet, Houston City Council Wednesday and Fort Bend County Commissioners a day earlier agreed to boost development in the city’s southwest corner with a new tax increment reinvestment zone.

In a tax increment reinvestment zone, property taxes generated within the zone’s boundaries are frozen at a set level. As development occurs and property values rise, tax revenues above that original level are funneled back into the zone to pay for public projects in hopes of attracting further development.

Over 30 years, the proposed 5,533-acre zone would divert $141 million in Houston and Fort Bend taxes to improvements within the zone.

“Essentially, this area has been neglected in regard to infrastructure improvements,” said District K Council Member Larry Green. “We’ve gotten a lot of residential development, but our commercial is slow coming. If we incentivize it, they would come.”

The proposed zone is generally bounded by South Main on the north, McHard Road on the south, Highway 288 on the east and Hillcroft on the west. Here’s a map of the boundaries.